THE THIN RED LINE is the story of Company C, a U.S. Army unit during the World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It must attack a hill occupied by Japanese soldiers. You now know the entire plot of THE THIN RED LINE, and yes, it is every bit as boring as it sounds.

THE THIN RED LINE is subject to the same critique as THE PHANTOM MENACE: it's nobody's story. Most of the characters (with two merciful exceptions) are boring and literally interchangeable; more than one reviewer has confused one character with another.

The voice-over narration consists of maundering banalities disguised as philosophy. At one point one of the G.I. narrators (who? who knows or cares?) mumbles, "Who's killing us?" The Japanese soldiers are killing you, of course! And you're killing them! What could be more obvious or banal? Another pompously suggests that all humans are part of one universal soul. Are we seriously to believe that two men such as Col. Tall and Cap. Staros, with such different outlooks on life and diametrically opposite reactions to violence, have the same "soul?"

Oddly for a movie so obsessed with imagery (particularly of the lush jungle),THE THIN RED LINE consistently tells us what is happening to the characters, rather than showing us. Officers beg for water for their men, lest the poor sods pass out, but we never see a soldier pass out or even gulp the last drip from a canteen. Show us, Malick! Show us the crusted salt dried on the baked skin of a man who has no water left in his body for sweat! Show us the field surgeon losing his ability to care what happens to the men, don't just have him tell us about it! Show us Arnold Schwarzenegger getting blown to pieces while Rick Moranis survives, don't give us a line like, "No matter how strong or well trained you are, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you're going to get it." Show us what's happening to the people, not to the [email protected]#$% papaya tree!

The movie is also scandalously inaccurate. Any war veterans in the audience will giggle to see two dozen Japanese voluntarily surrender to Company C alone. In reality, Japanese soldiers were almost never captured alive, and when they were it was usually because they were too badly hurt to resist further. Even worse is the portrayal of the native Solomon Islanders, who are made out as living a serene and peaceful life untouched by the war. In fact, the natives of Guadalcanal were very unhappy about being invaded by the Japanese, and made crucial contributions to the American victory by carrying water, ammunition and other supplies to the troops, rescuing American wounded, and as coastwatchers warning the G.I.'s of attack by air or sea. All of this was at great risk to their lives. The movie's treatment of them as passive flower children is inaccurate, patronizing and downright insulting. Also, the idea of a soldier with multiple AWOL offenses not being court-martialled is absurd. This is World War II, when they shot Private Slovik for desertion.

In all fairness, the cinematography is breathtaking. Also, the acting is uniformly high-quality, with Nick Nolte as Col. Tall and Elias Koteas as Cap. Staros providing very strong performances, especially considering the weakness of the script they had to work with. The battle scenes are kinetic, giving you the feeling you are charging alongside the troops, and they manage to convey some pathos despite the film's refusal to let us connect with the characters. Only these elements save THE THIN RED LINE from being a total loss.

Bloody but detached, contemplative but witless, visually beautiful but emotionally dead, THE THIN RED LINE is not worth renting. Hard-core film buffs might want to watch it on TV for the acting and for John Toll's flawless cinematographic technique.

Rating: ** out of ****.

This film is unlikely to be appreciated by audiences reared upon a diet of dumbed-down Hollywood action fare. However, if you're prepared to sit down and watch THE THIN RED LINE with no interruptions and give it the attention it deserves, you'll be rewarded with one of the most intelligent, poetic and stunningly beautiful films you're ever likely to see.

Director Terrence Malick's films are alive with a sense of pure cinema with every frame delivering such detail and richness that you could swear you were there. The only other person capable of bringing such an immediate sense of time and place and sheer nuance of film (although in a completely different way) is David Lean, another major league craftsman.

Here, again, Malick uses his customary voice-over device although this time as a means of vocalising the abstract thoughts of the various soldiers as they struggle to make some sense of the conflict. It's an interesting approach which allows the audience to identify with the characters in a far less superficial way than in, say, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (the film THE THIN RED LINE is most often and most unfairly compared to). Malick is also not afraid to take time to illustrate the continuing natural backdrop to the carnage. Mother Nature almost seems to be occupying a pivotal supporting role as a detached observer on the sidelines, calmly and inscrutably watching the chaos develop.

It's a measure of Malick's complete disinterest with the normal conventions of Hollywood that actors such as Lucas Haas, Vigo Mortensen, Jason Patric, Mickey Rourke, Martin Sheen and Billy Bob Thornton all spent months in Queensland Australia and the Solomon Islands filming roles that ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor. Blink and you'll also miss major marquee players such as John Travolta and George Clooney. The stand-out performances come from Jim Caviezel and, especially, Nick Nolte.

Nolte just seems to be getting better and better as he gets older and his portrayal of tyrant Colonel Tall is something to see. I have never seen anyone express such an impotent sense of rage, anger and fury than Nolte does here. It's a fantastic performance from a real pro and it's a mystery to me why he didn't get an Oscar.

John Toll's pristine cinematography and Hans Zimmer's wonderfully evocative (Oscar-winning) score are other strong elements. The unusual music and visuals contrast so well that Malick sometimes fades out the noise of the shouting, explosions and guns, an effect that only serves to heighten the emotional power of the experience further.

You won't see a more beautiful film about the horrors of war. Movies like this make the task of trawling through the weekly diet of dumb formulaic junk served up by Hollywood almost seem worthwhile.

Every group has its pantheon of saints whether they are sportsmen, artists, politicians, salesmen, folk singers, bankers, crooks or, of course, film makers. And for those who earn their grubby pennies in the whacky world of making movies Terrence Malik is up there as one of the greatest saints. So criticising the man and his work is not just like giggling at a funeral but dropping your trousers and taking a dump in full view of the corpse. It just isn't done, and anyone who indulges in that kind of behaviour - or dares to criticise St Terrence and one of his films - is quite obviously a candidate for the funny farm. Well, perhaps. And perhaps, in the case of Malik, perhaps not. With this, The Thin Red Line, just what is the man trying to do?

It is, by turns, part post-modern war movie, South Sea travelogue, art house something-or-other and even touches on your actual straight-down-the-line gung-ho shoot-em-up before it reminds itself of its pacifist motivation and resorts to art house something-or-other. The technical term for The Thin Red Line is 'a mess' and that is putting it charitably. In another review I warned of the incessant, remorseless wall-to-wall sentimental soundtrack which does its very best to manipulate the feelings and thus the judgment of the viewer, and that warning applies to this film, too. I can best describe the soundtrack as chocolate box church music meets Joe Schmaltz and his Touchy-Feely All-Stars. And that description, too, is somewhat charitable, and for a film of this length - 163 minutes - I suspect the soundtrack composer was paid by the hour.

I must confess that I was well on the point of throwing in the towel after about 20 minutes. Someone once said of Richard Wagner that after hearing his music for half an hour, you look at your watch and realise only five minutes have passed. Malik seems to share that same affliction in The Thin Red Line. But I took into account the director's current reputation and decided to stick it out. I could, I told myself, be missing something and Malik deserved an honest hearing. As it turned out, I wasn't and he didn't.

I was stumped right from the off by a rather long shot of an alligator/crocodile entering a river and slowly sinking beneath the water. Significant or not? Well, to be honest, I don't know, although as that, or another, alligator/croc turns up in the film for no particularly good reason several hours later, tied to a plank in the back of a truck and surrounded by battle-weary troops on an R&R break, the odds are surely on 'significant'. But don't ask me how or in what way.

There followed quite a long digression (it, too, seemed longer than it probably was) of two squaddies relaxing with and relating to a village of South Sea islanders - paddling in the sea, being friendly with the locals, poetically musing on nature, you know, that kind of thing - before the navy show up and we realise the two have gone AWOL. Once interned to the ship's hold, it is then we are led to believe that the film will finally get going. And it does in a kind of way, but, well, not really. One young farm lad confesses to the sergeant that he's scared, another steals a pistol, a third reveals that he was once an officer but was busted to private - Malik is almost in danger of becoming conventional but confirmed cineastes will know full well there's no danger of that. So on it goes.

At one point Nick Nolte does a 'is this man mad or just really, really committed' act, but the film isn't about that, either. Gorgeous George Clooney even puts in an appearance as the captain replacing the 'good man' unjustly sent home in disgrace, but after earning his million or two salary for the very brief guest spot, he, too, disappears.

What were you trying to do, Mr Malik? Tell us, because I sure as hell don't know. Were you honestly trying to inform us that 'war is bad'? Are you really still not convinced we don't know that? And what was with all the, to my ears insufferably trite, cod 'deep' insights intoned every ten minutes or so in voice-over? Here are three random examples: 'War doesn't ennoble men, it poisons the soul'; 'Love? Where does it come from?'; and 'What's keeping us from reaching out and touching the glory?' That last is especially vacuous. There are well-directed action war sequences which would not disgrace any steak and potatoes action film, but after all the cod philosophising and insights it should seem obvious that Malik is not in the least bit interested in that kind of cinematic titillation. If anyone reading this wants to hear at first hand just how nasty and dehumanising war is, forgot about watching a confused and confusing Malik opus and simply ask your grandfather, father, uncle or brother.

For this viewer at least Malik's The Thin Red Line is not just not a masterpiece, it is dangerously close to being an insulting piece of self-indulgence. Malik has a duty to provide us with, at least, the means and context to try to understand what he is attempting to do. If he has made and is presenting a more complex piece than Son Of Rambo Rides Again: The Dinosaurs, Malik is most entitled to expect the viewer to engage his or her intelligence and make something of an effort. But that simply isn't the case with this film. It is simply a mish-mash of sentiment, middle-brow insight, would-be stunning imagery, syrupy music and stock war movie characters, all somehow cemented together with lashings of liberal fellow feeling. And that does not make it a great or even good film. To put it mildly.